This invention relates in general to digital circuits and, more specifically, to design of digital circuits that are laid-out with cells.
Mathematics is one attempt for humankind to understand the universe around them. As technological advancement occurs, mathematical concepts and algorithms grow to enable and/or support those advancements. Within the context of digital design, Boolean logic is the mathematical construct used to manipulate and optimize digital circuits. Nearly every electronic device today relies upon some type of Boolean logic for any embedded digital circuits. Other mathematical constructs, however, are possible that allow further optimization of digital designs. Changes to the processing of digital design are necessary when avoiding Boolean logic elements.
Today application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) are specified using netlists of library cells for a particular process of a foundry or fabrication facility. These netlists are used to fabricate integrated circuits made up of the library cells. A few hundred library cells are typically available for a particular process that include AND gates, OR gates, flip-flops (F/F), and buffers. When a new fabrication process is developed, engineers custom layout each of the library cells to get the most optimal performance from each cell.
In the appended figures, similar components and/or features may have the same reference label. Further, various components of the same type may be distinguished by following the reference label by a dash and a second label that distinguishes among the similar components. If only the first reference label is used in the specification, the description is applicable to any one of the similar components having the same first reference label irrespective of the second reference label.